Thursday, February 21

The Awakening (part 3 of 5): In with the New

Alternative Approaches of the New Paradigm

Now into the second decade of the twenty-first century, we face global crises at all levels - environmental, social, economic, political, and spiritual. And while these crises are still being treated as separate concerns in policy and activism, we are now coming to recognize that they are actually the interrelated dimensions of one single crisis; that is, the crisis of a dying paradigm out of touch with our evolving global reality. As we shed the principles and values of the formerly predominant world view, we abandon an ethos founded on materialism, objectivity, individualism, rationality, competition, linear and fragmented patterns of organization, intellectuality, scientific thought and social mechanization toward cultural uniformity (what Vandana Shiva refers to as “mono-culture of the mind”)[1]. Illustrative of this ethos is the principle of linear rational logic – if A is true, non-A is false – which has come to determine a uni-visional approach to social, human and economic development whereby civilization is organized into systems of uniformity with the same objectives (A), assuming that aberration from the established norm (not A) is incorrect[2]. We see this manifest in the homogenization of education, medicine, media, political systems, industrialization, and culture, where the dominant practices developed in the North have been exported through historic processes of colonization and present-day neocolonialism. As these systems create their own cyclical crises and eventual demise, there is no space to overcome them through the practices and principles of the disintegrating paradigm and its uni-visional logic.

To replace the old, new perspectives and changing relationships of the integral or holistic world view are coming to define the emerging paradigm, embracing a very different understanding of reality based on interconnection and collectivity, creating an ethos of symbiotic relationships, mutual learning, systems thinking, the network as the principal pattern of organization, a blending of science and spirituality around a unifying perspective of oneness[3], re-humanization of people as dynamic and diverse social-emotional beings, and an acceptance of the unpredictability of a constantly changing and subjective reality[4] .  As a new lens of perceiving the world and universe, the emerging paradigm affects all disciplines in a number of varied, yet interconnected ways. First and foremost, it entails a distinct recognition that we cannot rely on the systems of the old paradigm to fix the problems they have created[5]; instead, a radical overhaul is needed since “every part of life is contaminated”[6]. In other words, overcoming today’s many crises is not a matter of applying technical adjustments within existing structures, but rather of systemic change by shifting into the new world view, where innovative strategies have space to address our shared challenges. As piecemeal interventions prove insufficient, alternative approaches are taking shape, reflecting the principles and values of the new paradigm. The following is an expose of some of the approaches of the new paradigm.

Economics as if People and the Environment Mattered

According to Fritjof Capra, author of The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living: “The great challenge of the twenty-first century will be to change the value system underlying the global economy so as to make it compatible with the demands of human dignity and ecological sustainability.”[7] This assertion finds resonance within the new paradigm’s understanding of the interrelationships between all living systems, whereby human practices are enmeshed with the patterns and flows of the natural world[8]. Similarly, new ecologically sound economic principles recognize the dire need to re-envision the relationships between economics, people and the environment to ensure the survival of humanity and the planet. This requires an overhaul of how we view our current economic system, transforming the perception that nature and humans are subservient instruments of the economy in the service of the global capitalist framework, and instead rightly repositioning the economy within the all-encompassing biosphere in the service of humanity and the Earth on which all life depends. This understanding has informed an array of practices based on a re-valuing of the laws of nature and the re-humanization of people toward an economics of human dignity and sustainability.

While a world without economic growth may still be politically unthinkable at the international level given the entrenched power of elite interests who profit from a continuous reliance on growth, the physical impossibility of sustaining limitless growth beyond the short-term is indisputable given our finite natural environment[9]. As our global society acknowledges the limits to growth, a new ecological economics is emerging to counter the destructive practices of our current economic system. The main principles of an ecological economics for the new paradigm include overcoming skepticism that environmental strategies are extraneous to economics or inherently ‘uneconomic’[10]; deep ecology, or the recognition that nature is our living partner in the systemically related everything[11]; and eco-design through eco-effectiveness to learn from natural processes of symbiosis to not only redesign technologies and transform production cycles toward zero waste and local self-sufficiency, but also to use ‘waste’ as part of the production process to yield even more useful byproducts for society.[12] [13]

Tangible practices related to these principles include permaculture and ecological clusters (see image below) for zero-waste production and organic farming, local organization to support sustainable community projects, bottom-up approaches to learn from indigenous and local knowledge, and bio-mimicry – learning sustainable practices based on nature’s own symbiotic relationships (e.g. bacteria to purify water; animals to eat insects instead of pesticides, etc.). The global network of Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives and the related field of Blue Economy have been instrumental in designing and informing these and other practices of sustainability for communities and businesses. Similarly, the Earth Charter and the Natural Step Framework act as a guide for sustainable strategies currently being created and implemented in communities seeking solutions to today’s challenges.

In the wider framework, economic principles and policy approaches have been designed for a socially and environmentally responsible political economy, founded on the concepts of de-growth (a voluntary reduction of the size of the economic system through lower production and consumption seeking social justice, wellbeing and ecological sustainability[14]) and the steady-state economy (“constant stocks of people and artifacts, maintained at some desired, sufficient levels by… the lowest feasible flows of matter and energy from the first stage of production to the last stage of consumption”[15]), as mentioned briefly in the previous post. These movements seek to replace the destructive and de-humanizing effects of global dependence on economic growth by promoting minimal consumption and maximum wellbeing through local production, work-sharing to find an optimum balance between work time and leisure time for pursuing interests and hobbies, expanding local commons and transitioning to smaller-scale and not-for-profit enterprises like worker cooperatives[16].

These practices would be made possible through economic and monetary localization, introducing local currency to promote local consumption and abandoning a usury-based monetary system through low- or zero-interest loans issued by local public banks and credit unions; they would be incentivized based on a taxation-and-rewards system where social and environmental costs are internalized and accounted for in full to end the opposition between economy and ecology – re-pricing goods and services through full-cost accounting and taxing pollution, private land ownership, speculation, exorbitant incomes, luxury consumer goods and natural resource use while giving rewards for environmental conservation[17]. Here, the economics of the new paradigm focuses on the collective common good, restoring ‘the commons’ as non-rival and non-excludable[18], to be used by and for the people of a given community or society to serve the interests and needs of all. Charles Eisenstein takes it a step further, proposing the ‘social dividend’ as a universal social welfare scheme to cover basic life needs, which would allow people to work because they want to, not because they have to – in the process, activating individual talents and gifts toward a dignified life of pursuing that which inspires us[19]. In this scenario, people have the space to develop themselves as complete individuals and full members of communities and culture at the same time[20].

Indeed, many of these alternative approaches of the new paradigm will require a process of ‘re-skilling’[21], particularly since modern products have distanced us from knowing how to do things vital to our survival, including growing our own food, making our own clothes, building our own shelter and creating our own sources of energy. This entails a need for re-learning the skills and practices of local production toward self-sufficiency communities, including community gardening and renewable energy production, where information sharing through open-source technology and online skill-sharing will be essential. Finally, the new economics is founded on a fundamental re-valuing of society, forming institutions focused on the creation of social value and emphasizing the use-value significance of natural resources and the currently unpaid ‘core economy’ of household labor, domestic care, and raising children so crucial to maintaining functioning societies[22]. Combining E.F. Schumacher’s still very relevant call for ‘economics as if people mattered’[23] and John Michael Greer’s more recent platform on ‘economics as if survival mattered’[24], the principles, values and practices of the new economics provide realistic and useful alternative approaches for sustainable and flourishing societies of the new paradigm. As we embrace these new alternatives, perhaps society will move closer to experiencing collective “genuine wealth” - living full, robust lives according to the authentic core values of each person[25].

Sociopolitical Organization for Democratic Participation and Cultural Diversity    

The alternative economic approaches considered in the previous section are complemented by new styles of sociopolitical organization to promote social and democratic participation and celebrate diversity as two of the main tenets of the holistic world view. As we have come to learn that in the framework of global capitalism, “the real goal of a well-functioning economic system is to protect the wealth and power of the rich”[26], the current move toward non-capitalist practices of production and consumption requires significant transitions in the traditional systems of power and governance dominant in the world today. While the next installment in this series will address the role of social movements in tipping the scale toward environmental sustainability and people-centered politics, let us first understand the principles and values underlying emerging forms of sociopolitical organization.

The first principle is founded on a strong demand for government to serve people and communities rather than elite interests at odds with the needs and values of the majority and overtly destructive of nature. People are organizing into social movements to demand that their voices be heard and their political concerns be addressed, with heavy resistance to environmentally destructive energy projects and resource extraction, as well as against excessive social inequalities resulting from highly unequal power-and-money relations across the globe. Global institutions like the United Nations, World Trade Organization, World Bank and International Monetary Fund face continued criticism for being unable to respond to the concomitant crises of modernity given the power of entrenched interests guiding global policies favoring rich corporations and their detrimental practices over the demands of people everywhere. As these international institutions grow increasingly discredited, we see a shift toward decentralization and a pluralistic system of regional intergovernmental bodies and international non-governmental organizations playing a greater role in global society. With governance coming to be seen as an instrument to support cooperation, conservation and sharing, there is even greater demand for global institutions with the power to guarantee people-centered politics. Forums for exchange and sharing, such as the World Social Forum, have come to characterize new civil society relationships toward sustainable global solutions outside the traditional intergovernmental framework. A defining characteristic of these exchanges is a celebration of cultural diversity in recognition that we can learn from eachother’s differences and that there is no one right way of doing things given our distinct backgrounds and ways of life. This contrasts markedly with the uniform homogenization of the linear rational logic of the dying paradigm discussed earlier.

As new communities come together at the international level, we are also seeing greater community building at the local level to support socioeconomic localization and neighborliness to overcome shared challenges on a smaller scale. Acting locally, people are coming together to shape social change at the grassroots level, in the process transforming views, values and behaviors, which are beginning to evolve into an embodiment of the principles of the new paradigm: solidarity, collectivity, cooperation and an emphasis on interconnected relationships in harmony with nature. Local empowerment through broader social participation and political engagement at the local level supports greater resilience, efficiency and diversity in creating sustainable practices[27], and according to Matthieu Ricard, author of Happiness: Developing Life’s Most Important Skill, communities with high social involvement, volunteer organizations, spaces for sports and music and quality relationships are happy communities[28]. In responding to crisis, community engagement and people coming together to create new sustainable realities may begin to restore individuals’ sense of wellbeing currently lost in capitalism’s consumer culture.

Finally, the relationships between individuals, communities, societies and governments are also undergoing a process of transition, wherein the balance between freedom and control is being renegotiated, with people recognizing cooperation and collective values and more willing to accept tradeoffs for the benefit of the common good[29]. In this framework, government at all levels is seen as an expression of shared interests and goals, wielding control to guide decisions toward collective needs while still finding space for individual wants.

While we may still be a ways away from these principles coming to define standard practice around the world, it is useful to acknowledge the foundations of the paradigmatic shifts taking shape in hundreds of communities worldwide. In the final post in this series, we will examine a number of projects that embody the principles of the new paradigm, achieving success in new practices of ecological economics and sociopolitical organization for democratic participation and cultural diversity, inspiring hope that utopian ideals are not just words on a page, but rather possible solutions to today’s many challenges. However, as new practices of organization and economics come into being, Graeme Taylor reminds us that the new type of living social system has to evolve on its own; it cannot be invented and then assembled as in the mechanistic processes of the old paradigm; rather, it will always be a surprise, based on trial and error given the previously unknown capabilities of new systems[30].

Let us end with an important question warranting serious attention to be addressed in the next post: if we have all of these new principles and practices at our disposal to develop the systems we desire, why are they not being implemented or even discussed in policy circles and the international community? Of course, the issue here is one of power and political will – if those in positions of power who dictate the norms of our global society do not stand to gain from the implementation of the policies and practices of the new paradigm, will we ever experience the shifts necessary to support the flourishing of humanity in harmony with the Planet? Or is it all just a lost cause; a utopian pipe dream?

The next post will address the issue of power and the strength of the global countermovement. Hint: it’s closer to home than you think…     



[1] Robert, Anne. “Paradigm Shift: New Perspectives, Changing Relationships”. Lecture delivered at the University for Peace of Costa Rica, January 28, 2013.
[2] Robert, Anne. “Paradigm Shift: New Perspectives, Changing Relationships”. Lecture delivered at the University for Peace of Costa Rica, January 28, 2013.
[3] Keepin, William (2012). “Inner Net of the Heart: The Emerging Worldview of Oneness,” In Maddy Harland and William Keepin (Eds.), The Song of the Earth: A Synthesis of the Scientific and Spiritual World Views, pp.2-17. UK: Permanent Publications.
[4] Robert, Anne. “Paradigm Shift: New Perspectives, Changing Relationships”. Lecture delivered at the University for Peace of Costa Rica, January 28, 2013.
[5] For example, see: Lindner, Evelin (2012). A Dignity Economy: Creating an Economy that Serves Human Dignity and Preserves Our Planet. Lake Oswego: World Dignity Press; Taylor, Graeme (2008). Evolution’s Edge: The Coming Collapse and Transformation of Our World. British Colombia: New Society Publishers; Greer, John Michael (2011). The Wealth of Nature: Economics as if Survival Mattered. British Colombia: New Society Publishers; McDonough, W. and Braungart, M. (2002). Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the way we make things. North Point Press; Grignon, Paul. Money as Debt. May 9, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K5_JE_gOys
[6] Lindner, Evelin (2012). A Dignity Economy: Creating an Economy that Serves Human Dignity and Preserves Our Planet. Lake Oswego: World Dignity Press.
[7] Capra, Fritoj (2002). The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living. New York: Doubleday. p.262.
[8] Capra, Fritoj (2002). The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living. New York: Doubleday.
[9] Daly, Herman E. (2007). Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development: Selected Essays of Herman Daly. UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
[10] McDonough, W. and Braungart, M. (2002). Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the way we make things. North Point Press.
[11] Robert, Anne. “Paradigm Shift: New Perspectives, Changing Relationships”. Lecture delivered at the University for Peace of Costa Rica, January 28, 2013.
[12] Capra, Fritoj (2002). The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living. New York: Doubleday.
[13] McDonough, W. and Braungart, M. (2002). Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the way we make things. North Point Press.
[14] François Schneider (2010). Degrowth of Production and Consumption Capacities for social justice, well­being and ecological sustainability. Second Conference on Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity. Barcelona, March 2010. Available at: http://www.barcelona.degrowth.org/fileadmin/content/documents/Proceedings/Schneider.pdf
[15] Daly, Herman (1991). Steady-State Economics, 2nd edition. Island Press, Washington, DC. p.17
[16] For insightful reading on the de-growth movement, see: François Schneider (2010). Degrowth of Production and Consumption Capacities for social justice, well­being and ecological sustainability. Second Conference on Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity. Barcelona, March 2010. Available at: http://www.barcelona.degrowth.org/fileadmin/content/documents/Proceedings/Schneider.pdf
[17] Eisenstein, Charles (2011). Sacred Economics: Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition. Berkeley, California: Evolver Editions.
[18] Spratt, A., & Simms, S. et al. (2010). The Great Transition: A Tale of How it Turned Out Right.
[19] Eisenstein, Charles (2011). Sacred Economics: Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition. Berkeley, California: Evolver Editions.
[20] Taylor, Graeme (2008). Evolution’s Edge: The Coming Collapse and Transformation of Our World. British Colombia: New Society Publishers
[21] Spratt, A., & Simms, S. et al. (2010). The Great Transition: A Tale of How it Turned Out Right.
[22] Spratt, A., & Simms, S. et al. (2010). The Great Transition: A Tale of How it Turned Out Right.
[23] Schumacher, E.F. (1993). Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered. Vintage Publishers.
[24] Greer, John Michael (2011). The Wealth of Nature: Economics as if Survival Mattered. British Colombia: New Society Publishers
[25] Anielski, Mark. (2007). The Economics of Happiness. Canada: New Society Publishers.
[26] Smith, Philip & Max-Neef, Manfred. Economics Unmasked: From Power and Greed to Compassion and the Common Good.
[27] Spratt, A., & Simms, S. et al. (2010). The Great Transition: A Tale of How it Turned Out Right.
[28] Ricard, Matthieu (2003). Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life´s Most Important Skill. Paris: NiL Editions.
[29] Spratt, A., & Simms, S. et al. (2010). The Great Transition: A Tale of How it Turned Out Right.
[30] Taylor, Graeme (2008). Evolution’s Edge: The Coming Collapse and Transformation of Our World. British Colombia: New Society Publishers

Saturday, February 16

The Awakening Part 2 of 5: Out with the Old


De-linking Growth and Material Accumulation from Economic Development and Social Wellbeing


Capitalism, Consumer Culture 
and Social Wellbeing: (Frowny Face)

Thanks to the mop-top legends of twentieth century pop music, we already know ‘Money Can’t Buy me Love’. But now we’re starting to learn that money can’t buy me happiness, either. And it certainly can’t buy me things like fulfillment, peace of mind, spiritual connection, or soul-tingling interpersonal relationships. We’re even discovering that beyond a sufficient threshold of income and purchasing power, having more money and material possessions is actually making us more unhappy[1] [2], lending economic credibility to Thoreau’s timeless words: “Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind”.
Income’s diminishing returns to happiness[3] extend beyond the individual or household to the national level, where rich countries getting richer has not meant that people living in these countries are any happier[4]. Although Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the measure of economic growth and understood as the total dollar value of all goods and services produced within a country, has risen significantly over the past half-century in the countries of the Global North, citizens today do not report feeling happier than their counterparts in the mid-twentieth century; in many instances, people are less happy today than they were in the past despite significant rises in per capita income. For example, Matthieu Ricard, author of Happiness: A Guide to Life’s Most Important Skill, notes that between 1949 and today, while real income in the United States has increased more than double, the number of people declaring themselves as “very happy” has decreased[5]. Similarly, Mark Anielski comments in his book The Economics of Happiness, “many life conditions for the average US citizen have grown worse despite increasing levels of GDP and booming financial markets”[6] To understand this concept in a tangible sense, a recent poll conducted by Marist College pegged $50,000 as the household income threshold for a family of four in the United States, beyond which additional income does not contribute to higher wellbeing.[7] So if a family of four can maximize happiness on a combined income of $50,000 in a country like the US with its relatively high cost of living, why the continued obsession with wealth accumulation and consumption beyond the happiness sufficiency threshold and beyond the natural limits of the Earth?
In our current (final) stage of modern capitalism, understood by Daly and Cobb as “the hedonistic accumulation of riches without any moral or ethical limiters on sufficiency or a sense of what constitutes a virtuous life”[8], even the most wealthy nations and their citizens are beginning to sense a disconnect between modern life and what we know in our hearts to constitute a good life[9]. As described in the metaphorical anecdote in the previous post, the North’s obsession with economic growth and material accumulation has come to define its increasingly homogenous culture, whereby the ‘pursuit of happiness’ has become synonymous with society’s competitive drive for making money and spending it on consumer goods. As inherent to the structure of the capitalist system, this process propels the continuous hamster-wheel-like cycle of the codependent relationships between production and consumption; between money, debt and economic growth. 
As industrialization allowed modern society to produce en masse, well beyond the intrinsic needs or wants of people, promoting consumption became the solution to absorbing all the excess production[10], because in a market-driven system supply and demand must meet to reach equilibrium. Enter: the birth of the advertising industry, helping potential consumers everywhere awaken to their unexpressed desires to buy, buy, buy; in economic terms, stimulating demand. As advertising and pop culture continue to promote over-consumption by purposely making us feel like we need to own things we otherwise wouldn’t want or care about, we keep the system alive: obedient hamsters on the wheel of debt-and-economic growth, chasing the American dream. In the words of Dave Ramsey, the consumer lifestyle is pathetically simple: “we spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like”.[11]  As a result, our identity and pleasures in life have come to be defined by what we can buy – which restaurants we eat at, where we shop, the cars we drive, the clothes we wear and the houses we live in. In a market democracy, we call this “freedom of choice”, exercising our constitutional rights in the pursuit of happiness by shopping where we want to shop and eating where we want to eat.
When we pause for a second, however, we recognize that none of it is really ‘our choice’ at all; we wouldn’t buy the majority of what we buy if it weren’t for advertisers convincing us that we need the next best product we can’t live without (we’ve lived without it for this long, why do we need it now?). We begin to acknowledge that our extreme consumption and material accumulation has not made us any happier, but has instead left us with thunder thighs and no closet space and gaping holes in our souls. Still, we yearn to consume to keep up with the glamorous lifestyles we see on TV, which are increasingly impossible for the majority to attain: “More and more wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, whose lifestyles are glorified by the media, which means that the expectations of the majority have become increasingly beyond their means”[12]. As a result, we are not more fulfilled now but rather more empty because we’ve attempted to find happiness by filling our homes and closets with an endless number of material things instead of focusing on those intangible things that actually, it turns out, contribute more to our personal and community wellbeing; things like deep social bonds, connection with nature, being active, exploring our inner passions, developing our talents and skills, and sharing our lives with those we love.
Alan Thein Durning explains this perpetual sense of lack in modern society as follows: “many in the consumer society have a sense that their world of plenty is somehow hollow – that, hoodwinked by a consumerist culture, they have been fruitlessly attempting to satisfy with material things what are essentially social, psychological and spiritual needs….By the consumerist definition, satisfaction is a state that can never be attained”[13].  This perpetual inability to feel satisfied fits nicely in the capitalist framework whereby we will continue consuming and therefore feeding the growth machine, which is itself vital to the service of usury (interest charged of loans), as explained in detail in the anecdote. The service of usury is so entrenched in the system that money owed is always greater than the money existing, forcing us to continue “innovating” -- creating new goods and services to sell on the market in order to keep the wheels of the machine turning. This has resulted in the commodification of things that were once free: “the relentless conversion of life, spirit and world into money”[14], deepening our inability to find meaning in anything when the intrinsic use-value of it has been disregarded in favor of those things determined to possess exchange value, which, in the capitalist consumer society, means anything that can be priced and sold on the market. This process of commodification of things that were previously free – like nature and its resources, spiritual practices, leisure activities, etc. – and the prioritization of exchange value over use value has misguided our entire values system such that we only know how to value that which has a price tag. Meanwhile, the “free” things in life, the things that have no value on the market (e.g. meaningful relationships, exploring our passions, social participation), are what actually contribute most to our experience of happiness. Quite the perplexing disconnect in our modern consumer culture, and at the heart of our discontent.   
As the first step in the process of awakening, this realization phase is most uncomfortable, and in our entrenched consumer society there is not much space for imagining a different existence, often leading us into depression as we see no way out of this dark tunnel, or fueling addiction as we keep trying to fill ourselves up by consuming or numbing the pain of our materially rich but spiritually and socially empty lives. And instead of being rightly seen and treated as the social symptoms of our diseased capitalist system and the consumer culture on which it thrives, we face increasing stigmatization and social alienation, deepening the pain and emptiness inside us and making it no surprise that two percent of all deaths in the world are suicides, above both murder and war[15].  
Growth for Development: 
Exporting Frowny Faces 
and Killing the Planet
While the situation is spiritually and psychologically sad for those in the North coming to terms with their meaningless, repetitive lives as consumers on capitalism’s hamster wheel, the fact that economic development policy imposed on Southern nations continues to promote economic growth as a primary development solution should be cause for even greater concern. Wrongly founded on an assumption of infinite growth in a world of finite resources, Southern economies are encouraged to industrialize, stimulate consumer demand and create their societies in the image of the North as their hope for lifting billions of people out of poverty and into the system. An often ignored reality in this scenario is that the North’s incentive for promoting growth as a development strategy in the South is not born of a benevolent desire to improve quality of life for the world’s citizens, but rather grounded in the fact that the North itself relies on the expansion of Southern economies for its own survival in the form of continued economic growth and the accumulation of wealth. This is evidenced in the persistent need for cheap resources, labor and primary exports from the South to fuel production in the North, the subsequent reliance on consumers in the South as an extended market for those goods produced in the North, as well as the structural adjustment loans characteristic of the final decades of the twentieth century in order to keep the money pumping through the banking system, funding bad policies and unfruitful projects invented in the North and imposed on the South[16].  As discussed previously, in the global capitalist system growth cannot end, because if it did, no one would be able to repay debts and both banks and people would go bankrupt. On the world stage, this has led to international development policy oriented not toward helping improve the lives of people living in poverty and despair, but rather toward stimulating economic growth to ensure debt repayments in order to keep the global money system, and thus the global economy, alive.
But as the impossible hamster[17] and its message of finite planetary limits demonstrate, there are real and obvious limitations to growth – and therefore to the growth-for-development model --, making the collapse of the system inevitable, along with the development strategies it employs. However, in our ongoing round of economic musical chairs, “as long as the music’s playing, there’s no loser”, and the entrenched interests of the powers that be have a vital stake in ensuring that we as a global humanity become aware of this reality as late in the game as humanly possible. 
As the monitoring mechanism of the growth-for-development model, the measurement of per capita GDP has been traditionally used as the principal indicator for determining the social wellbeing of a country’s people, evaluating development success or failure on the measure of income alone. GDP-based wellbeing indicators reflect a purely quantitative concept of development and overlook the more significant qualitative aspects of living a meaningful life[18]. With economic growth and per capita income treated as ends in themselves rather than as the means to a brighter future for a nation’s citizens, development strategies have grown increasingly dehumanized and focused on numbers instead of human wellbeing, yet another perverse manifestation of modern capitalism’s prioritization of profit and economic growth over people and their quality of life. In recent years, new indicators have been created to take additional social and environmental aspects into account when evaluating the success of development strategies, including ecological footprint, health and education, as well as subjective measures of social wellbeing . Some of these new indicators will be explored further in the third installment of this series.
As a fallout from the economic development process described here, indigenous ways of life and local values are lost to the consumerist monoculture, which has become the “globally dominant cultural orientation”[19] of modernity, its overwhelming power and dominance undermining the cultures of non-consumers and crowding out those who attempt to live a virtuous life[20]; expressing itself in even greater distortion in exported form so at odds with native traditions in the Global South.  Facing these stark realities, we are now coming to recognize that if the goal of economic development is to contribute to the wellbeing of people and communities around the world, exporting an unsustainable growth-based system that has made people more unhappy and the planet less livable is no longer, nor has it ever been, a viable development strategy. In other words, “socioeconomics based on the growth paradigm can never be sustainable”[21]  and “attempts to bring people out of poverty by bringing them into the money [system] as it is defined today, are doomed”[22]. As new development approaches emerge, economic growth will play a much less significant role in policies designed to support social wellbeing, poverty alleviation and the promotion of flourishing communities.  As this process unfolds, the economic growth-for-development and material accumulation-for-social wellbeing mantras of the global capitalist paradigm are constantly being called into question and increasingly discredited on a grand scale.
Similarly, the environmental struggle has erupted as the people of the Earth rally against select elite interests whose entrenched power and influence stymie widespread progressive action to limit growth within the confines of the planet’s finite natural systems. Currently, “a world without growth is politically unthinkable”[23], because of those whose powerful short-term interests neglect the needs of the Earth and the vast majority of her people. Evelyn Linder makes mention of our dominant global economic reality as “a certain geohistorical cultural context that enables a ‘raiding’ culture to flourish and to hijack institutions with innovate tools and interventions [leading] to domination and exploitation, and if this happens at a global scale, it means the destruction of the entire socio- and ecosphere”[24]. However, as this scenario grows increasingly unsustainable, lurching toward its own demise, it presents yet another tipping-point opportunity where the tables are beginning to turn against the wealthy and powerful, in favor of the environment and the people fighting hard to save it. The concepts of de-growth and the steady-state economy[25] have emerged within this new framework seeking to transform the conversation on growth toward an understanding of sufficiency within planetary limits. This will no doubt require a revolution of the money system away from its cyclical reliance on economic growth.      
Wellbeing Economics: Turning that Frown Upside Down
With the ‘wellbeing revolution’ upon us, a new economics is piecing itself together, abandoning classical market-oriented principles and seeking solutions outside the current system. The new economics is founded on the de-linking of economic growth and material accumulation[26] from practices of development and conceptualizations of social-wellbeing as discussed above, and is instead centered on the principles of collectivity, cooperation and solidarity toward a socioeconomically and environmentally sustainable world. Wellbeing economics is diverse in its foundations and does not present blue-print models for society, respecting that wellbeing is a subjective experience to be defined differently among individuals, communities and nations. Based on the understanding that true wellbeing is determined by the satisfaction of subjective needs and living in line with personal values for a meaningful life, wellbeing economics is revolutionizing the ways we approach community development and design new systems to replace the old.
We will return to the discussion of wellbeing economics in the final section, but let us first take a closer look at the innovative socioeconomic approaches of the new paradigm now in its incipient design phase. Stay tuned for the third installment of this five-part series.

[1] Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence (Penguin, 1999).
[2] Daly, Herman E. (2007). Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development: Selected Essays of Herman Daly. UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
[3] Bruno S. Frey, Happiness: A Revolution in Economics. CES (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2010): 28-29.
[4] Easterlin et al. The happiness-income paradox revisited. PNAS, December 28, 2010, vol. 107, no. 52.
[5] Ricard, Matthieu (2003). Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life´s Most Important Skill. Paris: NiL Editions. Ch. 15: A Sociology of Happiness, pp. 173.
[6] Anielski, Mark. (2007). The Economics of Happiness. Canada: New Society Publishers. p.39.
[7] Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. Generation to Generation: Money Matters. April 13, 2012. http://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/misc/Home%20instead/Money%20Matters_April%202012_FINAL.pdf
[8] As cited in Anielski, Mark. (2007). The Economics of Happiness. Canada: New Society Publishers, p.24
[9] Anielski, Mark. (2007). The Economics of Happiness. Canada: New Society Publishers.
[10] Eisenstein, Charles (2011). Sacred Economics: Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition. Berkeley, California: Evolver Editions.
[11] Dave Ramsey (2009), The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
[12] Robert H. Frank (2007), as cited in Raj Patel, The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy (New York: Picador, 2009): 36.
[13] Alan Thein Durning, “Are We Happy Yet?” Ecopsychology (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1995): 69-70.
[14] Eisenstein, Charles (2011). Sacred Economics: Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition. Berkeley, California: Evolver Editions. Ch. 6: The Economics of Usury, pp. 93-124.
[15] Ricard, Matthieu (2003). Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life´s Most Important Skill. Paris: NiL Editions. Ch. 15: A Sociology of Happiness, pp. 170-185.
[16] Daly, H. Growth, Debt, and the World Bank. August 14, 2011. Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy. Retrieved 12/16/2011Bank
[17] New Economics Foundation. The Impossible Hamster. January 24, 2010. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqwd_u6HkMo
[18] For example, see: Schumacher, E. F. (1993). Small is beautiful, A study of Economics as if People Mattered. London: Vintage Books; Smith, P. B. and Max-Neef, M. (2011). Economics Unmasked, From power and greed to compassion and the common good. UK: Green Books; Raj Patel, The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy (New York: Picador, 2009).
[19] Jonathan Dawson, “Eco-villages and the Transformation of Values”. State of the World 2012: From Consumerism to Sustainability. World Watch Institute.
[20] As cited in Anielski, Mark. (2007). The Economics of Happiness. Canada: New Society Publishers, p.25
[21] Smith, P. B. and Max-Neef, M. (2011). Economics Unmasked, From power and greed to compassion and the common good. UK: Green Books.
[22] Richards, Howard (2011), as cited in Lindner, Evelin (2012). A Dignity Economy: Creating an Economy that Serves Human Dignity and Preserves our Planet. USA: Dignity Press. Ch. 2: Let us work together and dig up the facts, pp. 15-29.
[23] Daly, Herman E. (2007). Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development: Selected Essays of Herman Daly. UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
[24] Lindner. A Dignity Economy: Creating an Economy that Serves Human Dignity and Preserves Our Planet, 26
[25] Daly, H. Growth, Debt, and the World Bank. August 14, 2011. Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy. Retrieved 12/16/2011
[26] Jonathan Dawson, “Eco-villages and the Transformation of Values”. State of the World 2012: From Consumerism to Sustainability. World Watch Institute.